Mark Williams

Satire can be a rather sharp sword and can easily cut the hand that forged it. Mark Williams has been wounded by his own satirical blade: he decided to leave the Tea Party Express due to the fallout generated by his blog.

Satire, being a form of comedy, falls within the realm of the ugly. As Aristotle argued, it involves presenting “some defect or ugliness which is not painful or destructive.” That, then, is the challenge of satire-being ugly, but not crossing into the realm of pain and destruction. Crossing that line transforms the satire into the merely mean. As one might expect, discerning where the line lies does involve considering the purpose of the satire being examined.

I will, of course, admit the obvious: the line between the satirical and the merely mean is not an exact one. However, when someone crosses deep into the realm of the merely mean, that can often be readily seen.

Williams, I think, crossed that line.

Perhaps his failure at satire was due merely to a lack of skill rather than, as some have argued, racism. I will not render a judgment on this, but will merely consider the content of his post.

His post was supposed to be a fictional letter to Lincoln from the “Coloreds” and it begins as follows:

“Dear Mr. Lincoln, we Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!”

While it is tempting to claim that any use of “Coloreds” must be racism, that would be an error. While it is a rather sharp term, satire deals in sharp terms and hence almost no term can be excluded as unfit for use. However, the sharper the term being employed, he more deftly the satirist must handle his tools lest he be cut to the bone.

Williams does not seem to have handled the term particularly well, at least in terms of his avowed purpose of lampooning those who had raised concerns about racism and the tea party. After all, trying to satirize charges of racism by merely presenting racial stereotypes is hardly a demonstration of skilled handling. Using the term “cotton” is also rather questionable. After all, in the United States linking “coloreds” and “cotton” is a stock tool of racism.

As another example, consider the following:

“Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn’t that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bailouts directly to us coloreds!”

I can see, somewhat, what Williams might have been attempting here. Perhaps he was trying to make the point that to see the Tea Party’s opposition to bailout’s as racism would itself be racist, presumably because it would be based on racist stereotypes about “Coloreds.” However, it seems to come across in a different way, namely that it asserts that “Coloreds” love welfare and hence oppose the Tea Party’s opposition to bailouts (which are seen as welfare). Thus, far from refuting the charge of racism via a clever satire, it rather seems to provide evidence for said racism.

Unlike the two national parties, the Tea Party movement has no overall leadership or hierarchy of command. As such, while one organization can assert that it is banning or expelling another this really amounts mainly to posturing and statement making. Of course, much of politics is doing just that-making empty gestures for political points. Of course, taking a stand against racism can be more than a mere political gesture.

While it is reasonable and right to be concerned about the pernicious force of racism, charges of such racism should be made carefully, and need to be based on actual racism. Being critical of Obama’s policies is not racist. Using unflattering comparisons or modified images relating to Obama also need not be racist. After all, white presidents have been subject to such treatment (often by other white people).

This is not to deny that there are racists in the Tea Party movement. It would be odd if there were not, given that the two main political parties have racist members. As noted in an earlier post, it is not merely having some racist members that make a movement racist. Rather, it is the ideology and values of that movement. While the Tea Party movement has been linked to racism, the main concerns of the movement do not seem to be tainted with racism.

In various conversations I have heard people consider that the charges of racism against the Tea Party might be attempts (conscious or not) to wield that political sword to wound the movement. It does, of course, provide an all too easy and convenient avenue of attack: rather than engaging the actual political views of the Tea Party movement or addressing its criticisms, one can simply tar them with charges of racism. I suspect that there is some merit to these claims. The Tea Party does seem to be shaping up as a potentially significant political force. As such, it would hardly be surprising that the Democrats and the left would be attempting to weaken it.

It is also worth considering that some (perhaps even all) of the people accusing the Tea Party folks of racism are sincere in their belief. However, the sincerity of a belief is no measure of its truth. It could be argued that those who are very sensitive to racism will tend to perceive certain attacks on Obama as racist, even when they are not. For example, to claim that comparing Obama to Stalin is racism seems to be an error. After all, the point of this comparison is based on an alleged shared ideology between the two men rather than any reference to race. In other case, concerns about racism are better founded (such as the use of monkey comparisons).

Finally, it is well worth keeping in mind that some of the charges of racism could have merit and these should not be dismissed as mere political attacks.